Know Your Letters, Misread the Words
by Phthalo
Summary: Alphabet prompt. Has dysfunction. Follows the game, but deals mostly with off screen events. M for reasons, and also for Marian. Heh.
1. A is for Adrift

**A is for Adrift**

_-adj., adv.  
floating without control; drifting; not anchored or moored_

* * *

The ship is not a ship. The Blight has not happened. Carver is not dead. She has merely spun in place on a dare and has ended up dizzy in the grass with the world endlessly spinning.

"Calenhad," says Bethany.

"Denerim," Marian answers. They might as well be waiting out the burning midday sun in the tall grass of the Lothering fields.

"Mabari."

"Impotent."

"Marian, pay attention." Bethany's voice is gentle, a terrible contrast to the hold's constant creaks and groans. The ship is, after all, a ship. Bethany adds, "You're the one who wanted to play the history version."

She opens her eyes to look at her sister, who is busy picking at a dirt spot on her knee. Beside Bethany, their mother stares off into the close, stuffy gloom. She hasn't spoken much since they boarded; just keeps rubbing the palm of her left hand with her right thumb. It has become raw, but she doesn't seem to care. Aveline, too, is silent. All around them refugees like themselves are huddled into each other with identical distant expressions, all of them terrified, dirty, lost. The Blight has indeed happened, and there's no assurance Kirkwall will be safe. With the alchemy of her willpower she transmutes a mounting scream into a soft sigh. "Ishale," she says.

"Eamon."

_Not my brother. Not fair. Not this._ "Nevarra."

"Andraste."

"Bethany, let's take a break. I need air." She doesn't wait for her sister's reply, but stands on shaky legs and picks her way to the rickety steps that lead to the deck. No one bothers to move aside. Two weeks in their journey, and she's been the only one to climb to the deck every few hours. They're used to her restlessness by now, or maybe they simply don't care.

Outside the air is briny and warm. As sea birds shrill like lost souls overhead, she beholds Kirkwall's towering cliffs, jutting dark and forbidding straight out of the water. Enormous statues mounted into the jagged rock face cover their faces in eternal sorrow as they flank the ship's passage, their bronze oil-dark with time and weather. She momentarily feels exactly as their builders must have intended: a speck, nothing, a mere mote of flesh adrift at the mercy of fate. But no. She'd be betraying everything that brought her here if she became a slave to despair.

She imitates Carver's stance as it had been in his last moments of life, teeth gritted, shoulders squared, feet planted. What was it the dragon witch said? Something about ledges and jumping. Well, even on a steep precipice, a fight may be waiting. Standing on the deck of a ship fleeing the Blight, she turns her gaze ahead to the City of Chains. She is ready to leap.


	2. B is for Barter

**B is for Barter**

_-v._  
_to trade by exchanging one commodity for another_

* * *

"Tell you what," she smirks at the man. "You pretend those crates of Antivan brandy were always meant for Athenril, and I won't joke in the Gallows courtyard about some small time hood who slits his wrists for profit."

"Sod off, you blighted Fereldan. It's not true. Besides, what's to stop me from telling them about your sister, if you do?"

"Nothing," she tells him. "But then you'll have to learn to piss while sitting."

His hand twitches on his battered whitethorn staff, but she is quicker. One dagger glints at his throat, the other at his groin. She exerts just enough pressure that any sudden movements will pierce flesh. "Ask yourself," she says evenly, "what making the brandy available to the Coterie is worth to you."

They stare at each other a moment, and he lets the staff drop. "Dog country bitch."

"Glad to hear we have a deal."

Later that month she makes sure certain rumor channels are abuzz with talk of blood magic among the freelance merchants at the docks. It doesn't take the templars long to follow the carefully laid trail, and she watches from a safe shadow as they ransack his hovel and take him away more dead than alive.

"Was it you, Marian?" Bethany has of course heard of it. Everyone has. Another apostate, dragged off in the night due to whispers and hearsay.

She sips at one of Corff's brews and shrugs. "They found proof he had been neck deep in blood magic."

"I'm your back-up on every job, Marian. I was just outside. I heard what he said."

She looks at Bethany a long time as she chooses her words, the din of the tavern fading in the concentration. "I'm not taking chances, all right? He wasn't even good enough to get in with any of the guilds, but was scavenging off whoever he could and selling to the highest bidder. You can bet that he'd have squawked to the wrong person the moment something went wrong."

"And he won't now? Getting hauled away to the Gallows is the definition of that."

"Beth, he's a confirmed blood mage," she says gently. "They won't bother to question or listen. You know that."

"Yes, I know." Upset, Bethany looks a lot like Carver. She smooths away an invisible crease from her tunic and stands. "Maker, Marian, who made you judge and jury?"

Marian downs the rest of her drink with a grimace, grateful for the raw burn. She watches Bethany's slight form weave through tipsy dock hands and noisy Pit workers, and stifles the urge to run after her. Her cleverness, for all its recent exercise, has limits, and one of them is making Bethany understand that she refuses to lose another sibling, that whatever the price is for that safety, she'll pay.

Of course, protecting Bethany means cutting ties with Athenril. Too many thieves, not enough thickness. Their year is up regardless, and it'll take a whole lot more than an elven smuggler to keep the templars away.


	3. C is for Coin

**C is for Coin**

_-n., v.  
metal money; the act of making such; to create, invent_

* * *

For starters, she's killed templars for maps and scored a Grey Warden mage in the bargain. Had she been asked to envision this situation before the Blight, she'd have cracked jokes about death wishes boosting the appetite. As it is, she only finds herself hungry for coin. Fifty sovereigns. She'll take more, but no less, and Maker knows she won't say no to strokes of dumb luck.

One of which is the Grey Warden, who makes up for poverty more acute than hers with a quick tongue and a knack for healing. Another is the Tevene elf, all dark leather and burnished steel, whipcord taut and ready to kill. When the jobs get tedious, and there are jobs aplenty in the search for all that necessary lucre, their bickering shortens the long day.

"I half wonder if you didn't encourage Feynriel to go to the Dalish just to see if they'd come to blows. I mean, I know you wouldn't, but—" They're taking turns washing Wounded Coast dirt off over a dented metal tub in the small room they share with their mother. Bethany pauses from rinsing to look over her shoulder. "Do you think they'll ever get along?"

"Only if they were both Tranquil."

"You're horrible!"

Marian chuckles and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Clearly. Hurry up, you. Gamlen won't be gone forever."

Bethany finishes quickly and hands her a new washcloth. "You really should go first once in a while."

"And miss propping the door closed with a bucket of sand in my smalls? Discomfort breeds toughness."

"You sound like Carver," says Bethany with a laugh as she takes her turn by the door.

"Minus the part where I resent me for being better at itching than I am."

"Oh, Marian." Bethany shakes her head and regards her sister with a not entirely disapproving expression. "He'd have hated this place as much as you do."

"We won't be here forever."

She's as certain of this as she is of the sun rising every day. Somewhere along the way she's begun to believe in the necessity of the Deep Roads expedition, and it's become more soothing to her than prayer to the Divine.

As if to bolster her faith in their endeavor, more strokes of luck follow: the shipless Captain Isabela, whose easy laughter and ribald humor make even the worst setback seem small, and Merrill, who gives all of them who are not Fenris or Anders someone to fuss over, blood mage or no. Even Aveline, so focused on her job in the guard, has taken to stopping by Varric's at the Hanged Man on a regular basis.

If she believes they're drawn together in the stilted way of prisoners in a dark and cold cell, she doesn't voice it. This tentative togetherness gives Marian almost as much comfort as the weight of gold in her purse, and she has a dim notion she's not certain what she'd do if it were to shatter leaving behind nothing but the coin they've earned. She avoids overthinking and keeps her eyes on the money. With each saved sovereign, the future feels increasingly real, as if she were a mage and the gold raw magic, ready to manifest the boundless desire of her boundless will.


	4. D is for Distraction

**D is for Distraction**

_-n.  
a person, thing or activity that prevents concentration_

* * *

The slope turns slippery after she begins flirting. It is accidental, insofar as turning a pleasurable shiver into a smile full of intent can ever be accidental.

To be fair, Anders flirts with her first, but she never tells him an abomination lover is not on her to-do list, only baits him out as she wonders how his skilled healer's hands would feel on her skin. It is he who pulls back, not to mention the encounter again. And from there to losing the self-control to deny no one's made her weaker in the knees than Fenris is a very small step. Watching him tear through raider ranks is almost—almost—as good as sex. In the end, she feels it's only fair to also flirt with Isabela.

Still, she has standards. For starters, business and pleasure are oil and water, mage and templar, sun and moon. For another, her frustration will not mean extra business for either the Blooming Rose or Corff. Right after squashing fleas and begging, it is the grand Fereldan pastime in Kirkwall, taking all of one's four sheets and letting them flap in the Hanged Man's rancid breeze, and she refuses to do that. So, she will no longer hit on her companions, she will not hire whores, and she will not turn to drink.

What she does: hunt criminals, one gang at a time. The irony doesn't escape her. That it takes good old fashioned thwarted lust to turn her into a champion of order is yet another thing she couldn't have imagined, but there the reality is, and here she is, dragging her mabari, Aveline, Varric and Merrill on one escapade after another, night after night.

"You have to leave something for the guard, Hawke." Varric uses the tip of his boot to turn one of the dead Guardsman Pretenders over. "That, or start demanding a salary."

"Call me a concerned citizen," she says, her attention absorbed by the subtle clicking of tumblers inside the lock. "A good deed is my just reward."

Aveline snorts. "Cut the bull, Hawke."

"And done." She smiles broadly as she opens the chest. "The lock, I mean. Bull, I'd rather not touch."

"Very prudent," says Merrill. "They look like they'd mind getting cut. What?"

"Andraste's flaming ass! That's it?" Her cursing interrupts whatever explanation Varric looked like he might offer Merrill. "He used an Orzammar crafted lock for a few blighted silver and a chipped teacup?"

Merrill comes closer and peers inside the chest. "Oh, that's pretty. Is it magical? I remember one story about an enchanted pitcher. Or was it a butter knife?"

"It's not magical, Daisy."

"The question is," says Aveline mildly, "is it a reward and is it just."

The back of her scalp is still prickling with something like annoyance by the time she gets back to Gamlen's. She pretends she doesn't see Mother waking as she tiptoes inside the room and quietly slips in her bunk. Sleep doesn't come until well after sunrise, and even then she can't quite decide whether she's more rankled by Aveline's newly sharp sense of humor or the fact that it hit a well-deserved mark.


	5. E is for Existential

**E is for Existential**

-adj.  
_of, relating to, or affirming existence; how Hawke likes her vices  
_

* * *

"Poetry at the Hanged Man?" Isabela's laughter is rich and warm. "Hawke, you need to get out more."

She represses a scowl as she, unsuccessfully, attempts to snatch back _Lothering's Lament_. "I am out right now."

"What is it with you Fereldans?" Book in hand, Isabela retreats up the steps toward Varric's rooms. "If it's not drink, or a plight of some kind, you're beating your chests over how you all invented woe."

"Yes," she says as she pursues Isabela. "The secret is out: misery keeps us breathing."

"You'd think." Isabela throws herself in one of Varric's well-cushioned chairs and flips through the thin tome. "You worry me, Hawke."

"I, too, have concerns," says Varric, "though they're not so general as Rivaini's. Sit, please." He pours a glass of dark amber liquid from squat clay bottle stamped with elaborate green wax and slides it across the table to her. "For instance, you've had the partnership funds since last week when that Sister paid up, but you haven't yet met with Bartrand."

Her fingers drum on the table's polished surface. Of course her recent mood hasn't gone unnoticed. With a barely suppressed sigh, she chooses the seat across from Isabela. "I haven't spent it, if that's what you mean."

"I figured. You're not having second thoughts?"

"Maker, no! It's just—"

"I blame the poetry," says Isabela. "Listen: 'Dead you will lie and never memory of you will there be, nor desire into the aftertime—"

"'For you do not share in the roses of Lothering," she quotes ahead of Isabela, "'but invisible too in the Maker's house you will go your way among the dim shapes. Having been breathed out'.*****" Her fingers close around the drink Varric poured her. "The Soul's Escape, page eleven of Lothering's Lament. Honestly, I blame the Qunari."

Isabela stares at her open-mouthed and clearly uncertain whether a joke occured. Varric, meanwhile, has poured two more drinks from the same green-stamped clay bottle. "Well, that's different," he says. "Is everything all right, Hawke?"

"Look, Bartrand will get the gold, we'll go to the Deep Roads and come out rich. Everyone wins. May I have the book back, Isabela?"

A playful gleam lights up her dark eyes as she watches Hawke over the rim of her glass. "You know, if you ever want less... Fereldan entertainment, I hear the Rose has a Bad Girl Special."

Eyes half-closed, Varric sniffs at his drink. "I'd still like to know where the Qunari come in."

"Me too," says Isabela, who has still not relinquished the book.

"I don't suppose I'm getting out of here, or the book, until I tell you."

Varric shrugs, Isabela grins. They probably planned this whole thing, and she only made it more entertaining by bringing that blighted tome with her because she didn't want to read it with Gamlen around. "Fine. Just remember, you wanted to know. So let's toast: to choice."

"Now you're talking," says Isabela. Varric, however, is silent and watches her speculatively as they drink.

She holds Varric's glance for a moment. "When that Qunari mage set himself on fire, he said existence is the only choice, and at the time—"

Isabela makes a face that leaves no doubt that her opinion of Qunari is not much different than her opinion of Fereldans.

"Anyway." She wets her suddenly parched lips with the fiery drink in her hand. A tremor tries to edge into her voice as she says, "A lot of what I've been doing has been in consequence of— well, everything else. I guess I wanted to be certain that if I ever immolate myself it will be by choice. What else is there?"

"Fereldan poetry, sadly."

"And some vintage Paragon's Choice," adds Varric, tumbler aloft.

This moment she will not forget: Isabela's ironic smirk, Varric's deliberate sip at his drink, the flickering light casting oblique shadows into the corners of his tastefully opulent room, the Hanged Man's familiar din in the background. With a sudden smile, she relaxes into the chair's cushions. "Keep the book, Isabela," she says. "Consider it a gift from a Fereldan friend."

* * *

*****Sappho, Fragment #55, Anne Carson, translator

_Dead you will lie and never memory of you_  
_will there be nor desire into the aftertime—for you do not_  
_share in the roses_  
_of Pieria, but invisible too in Hades' house_  
_you will go your way among the dim shapes. Having been breathed out._


	6. F is for Flame

**F is for Flame**

_-n., v.  
ignited gas or vapor undergoing combustion; to shine, flash, burn_

* * *

"Why does she need so much elfroot?" Bethany scans the hastily scrawled list in her hand yet again. "He probably won't have enough in stock."

"She insisted on making extra," says Marian. "Though I really should rethink having Merrill brew potions. The last time she did, I smelled like wildflowers for a week."

"Yes, smelling good savaged your reputation." Bethany laughs. "Come on, you secretly like the Merrill surprise."

"Definitely more exciting than what I get from Elegant. Here we are."

They spend the next fifteen minutes pleasantly haggling over six weights of dried root, in fact just the amount Solivitus has available. Not that she needs to haggle, having already earned herself a discount on his wares, but Bethany loves it, and she finds the leisurely back and forth soothing. It'll be a while before she gets to do it again anyway. No Formari herbalists in the Deep Roads. A farewell haggle, before the farewell party, the way some people have a farewell fuck. No. Not that again, Marian.

She's so caught up in banishing the all too persistent thought of twisting herself around a slick-with-sweat and very naked Fenris, she almost doesn't notice they're being watched. It's Bethany's sharp intake of breath that draws her attention, and she follows the direction of her sister's glance to one of the Gallows' shaded alcoves. In the thin shadow is a scrawny, robed figure, almost insubstantial next to the bright, gleaming bulk of templar armor beside it.

The details form quickly. Bald head, cold blue eyes, old nicks on the vambrace, pommel shiny from use: definitely not a recruit. A steel gauntlet on a robed arm. Functional cloth, nothing expensive, a hollow stare beneath the burning sun brand. She gives the templar a cursory nod, as might be expected, and concludes her business at a pace so unruffled it can't but belie her hammering heart.

"I thought he—" Bethany finally says halfway to Gamlen's. "I thought they—"

"They made him Tranquil instead." It takes effort to keep the worry from worming its way in her voice. The evidence she planted should have gotten that peddler killed, but instead they merely burned out his mind and his magic. Her own voice sounds faraway as she says, "Don't worry."

"But what if he said something?"

"They'd have acted on it by now, if he had. It was nothing."

She's still telling herself this very thing as she stares into the low flames of their camp some weeks later, even though it never was an argument convincing enough to leave Bethany behind. So then: off into the Deep Roads with her sister, Varric, and the best healer she knows, just in case. And the maps. And a pile of potions on top of the pile of potions from Merrill. And luck, of course. Never forget luck.

Across the fire, Bethany murmurs and turns in her sleep. That luck better hold out. There better be treasure once they find a way past the blocked path, and it better be plentiful. It's not insurance against the templars, but money will surely buy them time to find a better way of keeping Bethany safe. Marian grits her teeth: even if the Void spills open, she will not fail in this.


	7. G is for Guilt

**G is for Guilt**

-n.  
_sweet, delicious, self-inflicted comeuppance_

* * *

There is a space inside her full of jagged little mouths. It's been there for days. She moves, they bite. She thinks, they bite. She breathes, they bite, and tear, and rend. The Void spilled open inside her. She's certain of that. The only respite is in the fight, the rush and roar of blood in her ears, the brief thrum of satisfaction when a dagger sinks into its mark.

"Hawke, behind you!"

She pivots in place at Varric's shout, and sees the emissary waving its clawed hands, the jaundiced glow of its detonation spell between them. Shit. Shit on a stick. She got carried away slicing through the rear ranks of hurlocks, spent all her energy in the bargain, now they're too spread out and she has no retreat.

She tries to duck and cover, but the emissary has finished casting and the force of the blast sends her flying. The world is devoid of sound. Blows to the head have been kinder. Her teeth feel soft. If she were to close her eyes, she'd see stars. Why can't she catch her breath?

As if underwater, she glimpses Varric at the end of the hallway, Bianca hoisted for another volley. Anders, pale in the hungry flare of spirit magic, scatters a line of hurlocks with searing flame. Dane, black with darkspawn gore, falls in mid mabari charge as if he slammed into an invisible wall.

There's something wrong with how long it takes him to hit the ground, with the angle of the ceiling, the height of the emissary. She's aware of tightening her grip on her daggers without being able to feel her palms. Distorted sounds reach her.

Varric: "Damn you, Hawke!"

The mouths grab and tear. Damn straight damn her.

"Don't you dare!"

Oh, Anders. Too late.

Is she in Lothering? The cool scent of mint lingers in her nostrils, clean and fresh like honey-infused tea on a long summer afternoon. Carver likes his with a drop of bitters, an affectation he picked up from a wandering bard, and Bethany always uses a splash of rosewater to turn hers into potable dessert.

Bethany— The mouths feast.

"You're awake." Anders looks down at her, his expression unreadable. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I could put on a ruffled dress and flirt with an Orlesian." It takes effort to enunciate properly, and even more effort to attempt standing up. They've pulled her away from the carnage and stuck a bedroll under her head. "How's Dane? Where's Varric?"

His grip on her shoulders is firm, though he eases her into a sitting position gently. "Careful. He went scouting ahead and your hound followed."

"Shouldn't you be doing that? What with being a Grey Warden and all."

"Ex Warden," he says more sharply than she expected. "The darkspawn are dead, and my skills are better utilized here. Here, drink."

She needs help handling Merrill's elfroot potion, and is glad for his warm strong fingers guiding her hands. Slowly, in the wake of several messy, stilted gulps, precision of motion returns. A vague mint aftertaste lingers. Quietly, she says, "That was stupid."

"Yes, it was."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

His question stings like a slap, unexpected but deserved. "I overextended and I shouldn't have."

"Tell you what, Hawke," says Anders with an intensity she only heard him use when defending Karl at the Chantry. "If you want to burn on an unwarranted pyre of self-pity, I won't stop you. Just do it after we reach the surface, and _after_ you've thought about what your mother, and everyone else, will do with you gone."

Her first impulse is to punch him. Her second impulse is to punch him. Her third, and the one she acts on, is to shut her lids tight against renegade tears. A furious blush sears its way across her cheeks, and the Void mouths gibber and bite without end. Except he's right, isn't he? Either be devoured, or survive. It's always been like this; it just took a Blight, templars and Bethany wracked with blight sickness—maybe even dying—to admit it.

She'll never know how she manages to summon a calm she doesn't feel, look him in the eye and say, "It won't. Happen. Again."


	8. H is for Hawke

**H is for Hawke**

-n.  
_the hottest hot thing in Hightown_

* * *

Less than six months after the Deep Roads, she's bought back the estate. Newly minted Hawke family crests, with their stylized raptors inlaid in flawless adamantine cinnabarite, flank the ivy-swathed front entrance of a mansion bigger than fifteen of Gamlen's shacks. It contains: painted, carved, gilded and lacquered furniture, antique knickknacks from Nevarra and Rivain, leather bound books with gilt edges stacked on fine rosewood shelves, a chandelier of superb Marcher wrought iron, fireplaces big enough to sleep in, an enviable wine and spirits cellar, red Orlesian velvet drapes made of the finest silk from Seheron, a dwarven majordomo and a dwarven savant, with enchantments at any rate. She may be a newcomer, and half Fereldan besides, but no party is worth mentioning if it doesn't include Serah Hawke.

"Serah Hawke, however did you manage to find a virgin bottle of Golden Scythe?"

"Do tell us how you slew that ogre, Serah Hawke."

"My dear Serah Hawke, my son can't stop speaking of you. You simply must come to dinner."

She never quite avoids a mincing tone when she relates her Hightown encounters to Varric and the rest of their band of misfits. They gather infrequently enough these days, but game night at the Hanged Man manages to turn into monthly event, with a rotating cast of players and expert cheating from Isabela.

She skips it tonight, and not for lack of interest. Fenris is there, and much as she loves watching him lose to Isabela's tricks, Bethany's letter means she has to find Anders. Alone. Which, now that she has to do it, she finds troubling. She wills herself out of her shadow and into step with him as he heads back to Darktown.

"That pep in your step says you lost roundly," she says by way of greeting.

If he's surprised to see her, he gives no indication. "Ah, the glamorous Serah Hawke. We missed you tonight."

"Which actually means you could have used my coin purse to distract Isabela."

"Something like that," he chuckles. "Everything all right?"

"Bethany finally wrote," she says. Beside her, she can feel him momentarily tense. "She— she says it hasn't been pleasant. Not that I expected it to be, but I just— Sod it! I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"Because I have an idea what she's going through and you want me to tell you it'll get better."

Of course he'd say that. Not that her intent was hard to guess, but his directness is too similar to the unerring way he honed in on her soft spots in the Deep Roads, and she is neither ready nor willing to have her frailties exposed again. She sighs. "Yes, that."

A long pause follows, filled by the sound of their boots scuffing against the street and the low, haunting cries of night birds. When he speaks again, his voice is soft. "I'm sorry, Hawke."

"I thought you might say that."

"Yes, but I mean I'm sorry about the Deep Roads. What I said. I had no right to lecture you."

It takes her several beats to understand him. The surprise is enough to stop her firing away even a single joke. "Maybe," she cautiously concedes. "But you weren't wrong. And anyway, it helped."

"Even so, I wanted you to know."

She throws him a sidelong glance. In the spectral light of the early rising moon, his profile is sharper, more aquiline than she remembers. She speaks without knowing what she wants to say. "Anders—"

His shoulders stiffen, and a sudden breeze disturbs the feathers on his pauldrons. "About Bethany," he says perhaps too quickly. "For what it's worth, I think it can get maybe a little better. But it depends on her."

She doesn't ask what he means. As before, he's singled out the thing she least likes to name. Would admitting she's done the best she could to keep her sister safe be so wrong? Would it be crazy to conceive that she can't, after all, fix everything? There's no undoing the past's tangled threads. Bethany's reserves are finally tested away from the protection she's always had, but Bethany is strong. Bethany is, after all, a Hawke.

.

* * *

_Life has gotten just a bit crazier lately, so the next few updates (until September or so) will likely be sporadic. A big thank you to everyone who's been reading along and taken the time to comment. Your interaction is much appreciated!_


	9. I is for Interest

**I is for Interest**

-n.  
_known side effect of too much Hawke exposure_

* * *

"So, Hawke, how does it feel to have the Viscount ask for your help with the Qunari?" Varric throws her an amused glance over the tops of his cards. One of the last hands of the night, and he's chosen this moment to start his inquiring minds routine.

"The Arishok asked for me. By name." She smirks out of the corner of her mouth. "So I'd say it's a lot like walking around with a big, shiny target on my back. About the only person not pleased was Seneschal Bran. Had I stuck around longer, his upper lip would have never unsneered."

Varric chuckles. "So you're saying you enjoy being an upstanding citizen."

"It has its perks."

"Only you would call being a buffer between the Arishok and the Viscount a perk," says Aveline.

"Impossible tasks give my life meaning."

"How boring. Will you three quit holding up the game over politics?" Isabela grabs the cards out Varric's hand and shuffles them back into the pack with a crisp snap. "Nothing good ever came out of interests disguised as principles. Who's in for another?"

"By the looks of that pile of coins in front of you," says Fenris, "you'll have better luck playing against yourself. I'm out."

"Spoilsport. It's criminal taking away our wealthiest player like that." She flashes Hawke a bright grin and a lewd wink. "Oh, come on, it's not like you won't leave when he does."

It's clear Isabela is amusing herself, but having things spelled out, especially with six pairs of eyes trained on her all at once, makes her feel like she's having a dream of standing around naked. There's no denying that Isabela's right. Of late, she's never missed a chance to walk with Fenris back to Hightown; she's been as religious about it as she's been about avoiding _tête_-à-_têtes_ with Anders, though no one bothers to mention _that_. She shrugs, as if to shake off the blush spreading up her neck and, if the sudden heat is to be believed, to the tips of her ears. "It's late and, thanks to you, I'm broke. Besides, I think I've funded enough of your expense account at the Rose for one night."

"Prude." Isabela laughs, a sound rich and golden as her jewels. "Go on, then. Walk each other home, if that's the best you can think to do."

And why is it the best she can do? This question has been with her for months, and it nags at her all the way outside. She could chalk it up to his obvious reticence, but she knows it for the insufficient explanation it is. Underneath all his self-possession and prowess, she can sense a lonely, desperate sort of fragility, a purity too clean and true to be tainted by her hunger for him.

"That was an impressive blush, Hawke." His voice jars her out of her thoughts.

"What? Oh. Yes, well, I excel at many things." Like saying dumb things, for one. Well done, Marian.

"That you do." There's no mistaking the edge of admiration in his voice, or the challenge, as he says, "However, I wouldn't have though you to be so diffident."

"Would you rather I mauled you in the street?" She meets his glance coolly as she issues a challenge of her own. "Because I would love to do that. If you'd prefer."

He is the first to look away after a short, awkward laugh. "Let's postpone mauling. I meant it was— sweet. Unexpected." With a shy, sideways glance he says, "Thank you, Hawke."

That look haunts her through the coming weeks. Gratitude, mingled with warmth, and a hesitant sort of openness underneath, as if he can't quite believe the thing he is looking at is as it seems. It disturbs her to consider that his perceptions may not tally up with her reality, as if by being who she is, she has already failed him. So she dams the tide of her desire, channels its fury into the thrill of fighting by his side, its tenderness into the patience of teaching him to read, and keeps her fingers tightly crossed that when the postponed mauling comes to pass it'll be gentle, misnamed.

.

* * *

_Thank you all for waiting! The next few updates will still be erratic, but I hope to get back to a regular schedule by the end of the the month. _


	10. J is for Juxtapose

**J is for Juxtapose**

-v.  
_to place together for contrast_

* * *

Pffft! Of course she desires power. Of course she wishes to rise. She's not helping a prince, however bereft of his lands, out of the kindness of her tender heart. And just for being so dense as to state the so-obvious-it-hurts fact, she threw in an extra twist of the dagger as she plunged it into the demon's back.

Days later she's still satisfied. Even in the chantry, the atmosphere thick with fine Orlesian incense and elegant echoes, a faint thrum of excitement courses through her at the thought of having been the one to deliver that final, punishing strike. It's not the violence, and it's not the fight. It's as if the demon, by having voiced her ambitions, forced her desires out into the light. Killing the would-be tempter was not just a practical necessity but also symbolic: none but she will dictate the course of her life. It's one thing to be a hit at parties for killing a few darkspawn and looting a thaig, and another to be the pivot on which current evens turn. That's the next step up. She's so caught up in her new sense of purpose, it takes her a few beats to realize she's being addressed.

"I really didn't think you'd come," Sebastian is saying. "Let me show you where it is."

"Of course." The addition to Carver's memorial. Her manner is stiff as she adds, "You didn't have to do this."

"I told you, it was the least I could do," he says as he leads her to the grand memorial wall, its myriad of engraved plaques glinting in the radiant light of their vigil lamps like scales on a fabulous creature. "Here it is."

The plain bronze plaque Mother had put up has been moved from its corner and closer to the Amell grouping, toward the center of the wall, affixed into the veined marble with handsome burnished bolts. It is now level with her gaze, and its small vigil flame has been given an ornate ironwork brazier. Two new lines form a flowing contrast to the bold letters of Carver's name:

CARVER HAWKE

_Blessed are they who stand before  
The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter._

"I spoke with your mother before having this done, and she said you might appreciate it better if you came upon it after the fact." The prince sounds hesitant, apologetic. "I hope you like it, Hawke."

She brushes her fingers over the curve of the C, following the name's flow, and fights the urge to dig her fingernails into the W's grooves. Carver would have liked it, she's certain, but does she? It was somehow easier to accept his death when his name was one of many languishing at the edges of the memorial wall. Seeing it spruced up in a prominent place only makes the old loss fresh again.

She takes a moment to form her words against the knot of tears in her throat. "It looks important. He'd have liked that."

"You'll want some time," Sebastian says as if the catch in her voice never occurred. "Thank you for helping me. Be well, Hawke."

She nods, her glance on the inscription below her brother's name. He would have liked that too, but only if he were to look on it from beyond the Veil after having died at a ripe old age, a passel of grandchildren and the trail of a life well-lived behind him. As things stand, he'd just ask the Maker why it is that Marian always gets the win.

If the demon shone a light on her ambitions, her brother's memorial crystallized another truth: glory without a legacy is meaningless. She knows without hesitation she'll someday name her son Carver, and that until then, she'll work to make Kirkwall a place this child will be proud to call home. That, perhaps, is the thing Carver would have liked most. She splays her palm onto the smooth metal and whispers, "I promise you, little brother."

What she does not voice, for it terrifies her to acknowledge the feeling dancing at the edges of her parenting desires, is the wonder at how much the child of an elven father might bear a family resemblance to his namesake.


	11. K is for Keen

**K is for Keen**

-adj.  
_1. how Hawke likes her pleasures  
2. the agony this chapter gave me  
3. my appreciation for everyone who's read, and, especially, commented  
_

* * *

If the first kiss in the darkened entry hall is a sharp stab of excitement plunging into her body and leaving it ragged with need, the second is the agonizing ordeal of a fever dream. He is water; she is parched.

They stumble up the stairs, a fumble of fingers and mouths. Under his leather, she can feel the contour of his desire, a hard, urgent shape. Her lips form an O, eager to shape themselves around it. He runs a thumb across them, and her breath on the exhale is pure heat. When their eyes meet, there is no reflection—she falls into the deep, all-encompassing green as into a welcoming abyss.

Her hands press against the taut planes of his body, his mold themselves to her curves. She traces with her tongue the bright lyrium swirls, punctuates the end of each journey with a bite and a kiss. He is a map to a new country, a new reality, and his moans of pleasure—it must be pleasure—her only guide.

She unravels under his touch, a myriad of ravenous Marians each in agony for a piece of him, only to be made whole again at the feel of him inside her.

"Hawke," he says. "Oh, Hawke."

His eyes are closed. Hers are open. She wants to remember everything. Not once does it occur to her to let the event unfold without hunting for moments to trap under memory's distorting glass. Having him under her, above her, intoxicates. It is a banquet. She feasts, and there is no purging his hold on her senses. Together they crest only to topple down, down.

"What about you and Fenris?" asks Aveline some weeks later, absorbed by her romantic woes.

She and Fenris. Her memory, bright and clear, hurts: his taste in her mouth, like the tang of air before a clap of thunder, with just a hint of slashing rain. The rickety barricade she's constructed against her churning emotions threatens to crumble. Her tongue stumbles on the words as she explains that it is, well, complicated, and an unsatisfactory example of togetherness besides. She avoids eye contact. The sudden awareness of Anders watching the exchange renders her shy.

He's not curious, she's certain. She wouldn't be surprised if he were able to explain what went wrong, even though she, the one who was there, can't figure it out. Marian grits her teeth. Getting Aveline a date will be work. Work is focus, and focus is calm. Just enough calm to face Fenris once the project is over, in fact.

"So, about us." Flush with success and a buzz as nasty as the drink that caused it, she's dropped in uninvited and chosen to cut to the chase. "That night."

He stares into the cold and empty fireplace and avoids her glance. "Hawke," he says, a little weary. "It's late."

"So you're throwing me out?" She wants him to say yes. She wants him to physically evict her. She aches for his grip.

All he does is continue staring into the empty hearth. "Of course I'm not."

"How about you tell me what happened, then?" She means it to sound harsh, but instead her voice is soft, almost cracking, and her heart a wild flutter in her chest. She reaches out to touch his cheek, only to stop as he flinches. She sounds lost: "Please, Fenris."

"There is nothing else to say."

"I see." She doesn't. All she understands in this moment is the need to scream until her throat is raw. She somehow manages to add, "I knew I wasn't drunk enough for this."

"Maybe you should sleep it off."

"I don't want to sleep it off! I want to understand!" And, as if the phrase were magic: "I love you."

The silence is a roar all around them. Even her heart gives up its frantic beating for one awful moment.

"I'm sorry, Hawke," he says as if he's noting the room needs cleaning. "Maybe I will ask you to go."

"Fenris—" But the words refuse to happen. There's a knot in her throat, and she is—stupid Marian—rooted to the spot.

"Goodnight, Hawke."

Her chest tight, she nods. The same self-control that saw her through the Deep Roads kicks in, instinct by now, and she stumbles outside. The tightness grows, it spreads unchecked with each step, a vicious black stain, seepage from a poisoned wound.


End file.
